Walking rehabilitation and exercise machines are commonly used for many purposes. In some cases, a walking rehabilitation and exercise machine is used for physical fitness. In other situations, a walking rehabilitation and exercise machine is used for physical rehabilitation for physical therapy purposes.
The very serious cases requiring physical therapy involve a person whose injury requires that person to relearn how to walk. In some cases, there is an exterior metal skeleton, known as an exoskeleton, which can be strapped to the person activated by an outside power source. These devices are expensive and complicated to use. These devices are typically too expensive for home use, or use by small therapy clinics. Thus, their availability is limited.
These exercise devices of the prior art also seem not intended to retrain a person for a proper walking gait. They also do not offer other desirable features. For example, they lack the support that person needs, while working to regain a good walking gait or carry out other functions. Furthermore, they prevent a slow warm-up, which a person needs for rehabilitation. Additionally, they cannot be adjusted relative to the skills for one side of the body or the other.
Adjustment between standing, partially standing, and sitting is also lacking in the machines of the prior art. Partially standing is a position necessary for a person to increase leg strength, which can lead to more efficient walking. To that end, those adjustments become critical. Yet they are absent from the standard exercise machine.
A standard fitness walking rehabilitation and exercise machine is not suitable for the serious aspects requiring extensive physical therapy. Such a device cannot be adjusted for a particular person. This is especially true when that person is adversely affected on one side of the body more than the other. To design a device and compensate for that defect is very difficult. Such devices generally have a requirement for substantially uniform motion from both sides of the body.
Yet, for certain injuries, such uniform motion is a physical impossibility. To that end, the advantages of having the walking rehabilitation and exercise machine be adjustable for the particular purpose can prove very useful. Not only can a person adjust the device according to their desires and needs, the appropriate parts of the body can receive the desired exercise.
Another desired feature for an exercise machine is the ability to move feet in a reverse motion in order to help loosen hamstrings. This movement is very important for a wheelchair-bound person to loosen those muscles and enable that person to fully benefit from this device. The prior art devices do not offer that option to a person substantially confined to wheelchair.
Thus, it may be seen that such adjustability applied to this device in a simple fashion offers great advantages for those people trying to recover from serious injuries.